This week I wanted to dig into an eastern MMO that launched a little while ago and had caught my attention for a few reasons. Twin Saga looked cute and attractive enough, but it was its mobile housing and reports of absolutely bizarre quest dialogue that made me think it was worth checking out. Plus, I’d had it on my computer for a month now, so let’s be done with it!

The character creator takes place on a ship that’s cruising by a lot of scenery (nice touch). Great theme music. I did find it more than odd that six out of the game’s 10 classes are locked at launch. You have to access them by hitting certain milestones or achievements in the game itself. I’m not a fan of this type of class locking (FFXIV? I’m still sore at your Heavensward classes.).

I went with a gunslinger, who looked like he was waving about my aunt’s priceless vases so much as functional pistols.

The game begins with Sypster here arriving on a ship that’s also carrying a pack-guinea pig(?) to eradicate a pack of wolves that are terrorizing an island. Kind of strange that they’re importing help, but any flimsy excuse to get us going is OK with me.

The localization writer REALLY wants to earn his or her pay. “Traipse over with the slightest of saunters”? What is this madness?

At least they put effort into it, which is a lot more than you can say for most MMOs. By now most games would have me killing three shrews or something, but here we are still talking. It’s really detailed, flowery, and strange stuff… but interesting too, and I’ll overlook a lot if something keeps my interest.

This being an Asian game, there are some things to expect, such as auto-pathing and bumping into overwhelming cuteness by minute three. Dancing kitties? Yeah.

Enraged by kittens running amok, the wolves soon attack and I’m introduced to Twin Saga’s combat system. It’s pretty standard MMO fare and feels good, with auto-attack punctuated by a couple of strong attacks. What is different, however, is that at the conclusion my character goes into a super-attack that involves pile-driving the head wolf into the ground. That… was not expected.

Tremolo? Listen, I write professionally, and this game is throwing words at me that I’ve never heard of before and slightly suspect that they are original creations of the localization team (or Google Translate having a field day).

Even the tutorial instructions are bringing out laughs in me. I have just never seen this in MMOs.

Twin Saga’s visuals are cartoony, but that’s not a terrible thing. The color palette is lush and vibrant.

In one of the most abrupt MMO tutorial transitions ever, we go from hunting wolves to being caught in the midst of a conflict between some sort of evil super-queen and a nice paladin. Naturally, during all of this the game reveals that I’ve had a good queen living inside of me all along. Long, long story short, the paladin commits meteor-assisted suicide and I’m left with the charge to protect the queen. And presumably kill more wolves.

In case you were wondering, yes, every NPC in this game is an over-the-top caricature and an excuse for the writer to indulge in his NaNoWriMo project.

I’m finding it difficult not to screenshot and share every bit of quest text. “Splayed out like a naked mole rat” will be worked into my conversational phrases this next week.

It’s not only the quest text that made me do a double-take, however. What in Sam Hill is this…? Asia, why are you so nutty sometimes?

From what I saw, Twin Saga is an incredibly on-rails theme park MMO with pretty hilarious writing and adequate combat. It was about 20% jamming on the quest tracker box to have the game auto-path and complete objectives for you, 60% talking with various characters while wondering if you’re having a fever dream, and 20% fighting. Maybe less than 20% fighting. That’ll probably change later, but other than the novelty of the quest text, I can’t see a huge reason to keep playing.